Coinbase users now have an extra option available to them when choosing to withdraw their funds from the cryptocurrency exchange. In a move that didn’t receive a great deal of fanfare, Coinbase has added PayPal to its platform, allowing users to make easy fiat withdrawals through the payment services solution. As an added bonus, the withdrawals don’t incur any additional fees.

No official announcement of the PayPal support was provided by Coinbase. However, users have reported receiving an email informing them of the capability. The only mention of it in on the Coinbase website is in the company’s FAQ, and reads, “Beginning in November, Coinbase will add the ability for customers to link their PayPal and Coinbase accounts. Depending on country of residence, customers can either withdraw cash to PayPal or sell their crypto to their PayPal account.”

In order to make a withdrawal using PayPal, users must complete Coinbase’s Know Your Customer process. Once that’s complete, they receive an email confirming that they’re eligible to take advantage of the implementation.

Withdrawals using PayPal are available in U.S. dollars, UK pounds and euros. Currently, only customers in the U.S., Canada, the UK and the European Union are eligible, but this could change soon. Coinbase mentions in its FAQ that it plans to provide support for the Australian dollar, as well as the Canadian dollar, in the near future.

Whether or not deposits will be facilitated through PayPal remains to be seen. It seems like a logical next step, given the platform’s wide range of services.

This isn’t the first time Coinbase has integrated PayPal into the exchange. PayPal withdrawals were available last year, but Coinbase temporarily suspended the option and subsequently eliminated it completely due to what it described as performance issues.

PayPal has over 244 million customers and managed 7.6 billion payment transactions last year. That level of volume could prove to be extremely beneficial to Coinbase and help increase mainstream adoption, as long as it is marketed properly.

According to a number of reactions in social media, the withdrawal capability is somewhat spotty. Some have indicated that it takes up to 13 days to receive the funds and others – even those living in the specified countries – have said that the service doesn’t work at all. It may be a work in progress, but should prove to give Coinbase, and cryptocurrencies, a significant boost.

California-based cryptocurrency company Coinbase is looking to attract more institutional investors. According to live-streaming site Cheddar, the crypto wallet and exchange company has introduced an over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk specifically for the investment class in response to customer demand. It’s just one step in the company’s plans to be a versatile platform that is regulated by U.S. authorities.

Coinbase Director of Institutional Sales Christine Sandler explained of the new offering, “We launched our OTC business as a complement to our exchange business because we found a lot of institutions were using OTC as an on-ramp for crypto trading.” She adds that the platform will allow clients to leverage Coinbase’s exchange and OTC service and explains that the OTC desk could soon be combined with its custody platform, Coinbase Custody.

It will compete against other OTC services, including Goldman Sachs-backed Circle and the Gemini exchange. However, Sandler points out that Coinbase’s solution will be unique. She states, “Circle and a number of others have complementary products, but they also trade on a proprietary basis, so they are the counterparty to each transaction, while we, in fact, are matching client orders.”

The current market slump may have scared off some investors, but they weren’t true believers in crypto’s capabilities. Those that see the potential of digital currency are in for the long haul. Sandler adds, “From our crypto first clients, we’re hearing that nothing has changed with respect to technology, and they’re still absolutely committed to crypto … to the technology. I think that there’s one small silver lining to this volatility … [it’s] that crypto’s been front and center of the mainstream financial media for the last few weeks. I think that has driven … forced a lot of institutions to think, really, is this an opportunistic investment point for crypto at this point.”

Coinbase is hoping to be a fully regulated platform. It is working with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to become a licensed broker-dealer. It hopes to be able to introduce a range of crypto-related solutions, such as crypto securities and margin trades, as well as new data products not yet identified. Coinbase has also received authorization from the New York State Department of Financial Services to establish a regulated custody solution in the state.

An amended class action lawsuit alleging insider trading at cryptocurrency wallet and exchange service Coinbase will go to court, after an initial application to the courts was turned down on a legal technicality.

The decision, published in court documents uploaded by Coinbase, means the case will be heard on January 31, 2019, in a district court in north California, giving the plaintiffs the chance to put their arguments in front of a judge for the first time.

The case concerns allegations of insider trading at Coinbase over its handling of the bitcoin BCH rollout in 2017, which many users had felt resulted in Coinbase staff profiting at the expense of the market.

The initial application was rejected in October, after petitioner Jeffrey Berk had failed to “describe the scope or content of Coinbase’s duty.” However, the amended filing now highlights how Coinbase breached its own listing rules, which claimants suggest will now form the basis of their class action.

According to the filing, Coinbase did in fact sell BCH at artificially inflated prices to its own benefit during the launch last year. It stated, “The sudden launch (of BCH) was effectively part of an attack by Coinbase and (CEO Brian Armstrong) to depress the price of BTC and to inflate the price of BCH, to encourage more transactions and greater profitability for Coinbase.”

“As a consequence of this scheme, the Individual Defendants and Coinbase enabled Coinbase to earn significant fees from the trades of its customers, from which Coinbase earned a spread over an inflated price for BCH, and to avoid a ‘run’ on the Company by sellers anxious to take advantage of the inflated price, by closing down trading within minutes of the Launch to all except certain insiders who were positioned to and did sell BCH at inflated prices during the Launch,” according to the filing.

Coinbase has until December 20 to file a response to the claim, ahead of its court hearing at the end of January.

The judge who ruled on the first filing, District Judge Vince Chhabria, accepted that Coinbase had “bungled” the rollout of BCH.

The firm has since conducted its own internal investigation, which perhaps unsurprisingly found no foul play.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

Back of the envelope calculation reveals crazy amounts of zeros. Goldman Sachs, $916 billion; ICE, $78 billion; Fidelity, $2.1 trillion; NYSE, $23.2 trillion—whether including assets under management, total assets, or even market capitalization, trillions of Wall Street dollars are beginning to pivot toward cryptocurrency, and I didn’t even include JP Morgan.

It’s fair to point out fractions of those amounts are actually being spent in the name of crypto, but the fact remains heavy, heavy hitters are slowly beginning to realize digital assets are to be taken seriously.

The Adam White componentThe plan appears to be offering physically settled futures, as Bakkt holds the Bitcoin backing futures, in what’s being called the ICE Digital Asset Warehouse. Of the several advantages is one stop shopping for whales: contracts are to be cleared through ICE Clear US. The press release explained, “Each futures contract calls for delivery of one bitcoin held in the Bakkt Digital Asset Warehouse, and will trade in U.S. dollar terms. One daily contract will be listed for trading each Exchange Business Day.”

Bakkt made even more news this month, albeit not in as grand a fashion. A Medium post by CEO Kelly Loeffler boasted of bringing Adam White, formerly of Coinbase, to its founding team. White’s significance is at least two fold. He is to head operations as COO, beginning in November, and so the deck is being assembled in hopes of providing confidence to insiders surely looking on.

Adam White is also defecting from the crypto world, having been the fifth employee ever hired by the largest bank slash exchange in the ecosystem … now valued at $8 billion. Those who might have been wondering if Wall Street was ready to take the sort of leap Bakkt is pushing, can be assured by White’s crypto street cred.

The language of Wall Street
Bakkt’s model is to take out stereotypes built and promoted by conflicts of interests perpetuated by legacy business news media. For example, favorite sayings in the workaday corporate world often involve ‘risk.’ Loeffler address risk, “Our patent-pending market model is focused on mitigating risk while creating opportunities for institutions to serve their clients in a regulated framework for digital assets. This means creating a solution that both provides wanted exposure and limits unwanted exposure.”

The language is designed to entice institutional wallets, and she’s rather wonderful at it. Their proposed conservative market model involves “a requirement of full prefunding for all Bitcoin trades, allowing clients to onboard directly to the warehouse, meaning that clearing members will not be required to handle cryptocurrency themselves, and a new, separate guaranty fund for Bitcoin, fully funded by Bakkt and ICE, helps ensure that non-defaulting clearing member capital is not at risk in the waterfall,” she explained.

The bottom line for Wall Street is put well in her conclusion, as she believes “the sooner a regulatory approach to digital assets is determined, the better positioned we are to support healthy markets and innovation within a dynamic global marketplace.”

Bear market bargainsAll of this is happening in a decidedly bear market, of course. Undeterred, smart money tends to do the buy low, sell high dance—and the present tune is all about positioning. Talk has even spread to the expectations game, with a recent report by Abacus Journal regarding JP Morgan and Bakkt.

JP Morgan, of course, is notoriously coy when it comes to crypto. Ecosystem foil, Jamie Dimon, is among the most quotable haters in the world. A good of rule of thumb with these fools is not to listen so much to what they say but, rather, watch what they in fact do.

Abacus claims to have spoken to “two staffers at the firms’ global headquarters who have been working on the relationship between Bakkt and JP Morgan. Let’s just say they didn’t disappoint and their comments just may represent how every global investment bank is planning to engage with Bakkt.”

StarbucksOne of the sources has been at JP Morgan for over ten years. The import here is how Bakkt provides easy landing into crypto, an area many JP Morgan investors are itching to explore, if the source is to be believed. The source explains further, “If I was forced to disclose where we are headed, take a look at the products that Goldman has become comfortable with and that is what we seem to be comfortable with at this time. Not confirming any product or offering, but I can speculate that we will have a trading desk and that clients will be able to access Bitcoin, via Bakkt, in some way shape or form.”

With a little over a month to go until Bakkt makes its formal entrance, another source explains the sleeper power the deal announced with Starbucks placed ICE’s project. “You may be interested in this fact: Starbucks occupies the largest mobile app payments ecosystem in the United States. Bigger than Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay – with 23.4 million users,” this person tells Abacus.

And speaking of Goldman Sachs, at least one report suggests they have customers ‘getting ready’ to actively trade their derivative. Guess which trading platform the Goldman custody offering will employ? Bakkt.

Cold water
Goldman too has played the expectations whisper, biding their time, even pulling back a proposed crypto trading desk this year. Abacus Journal, again, roots out sources willing to spill the beans in an anon fashion. “All of the pipes, levers, and ‘factories’ that are being constructed to process billions of crypto trades per day will eventually all work together. Bakkt, Fidelity, Nasdaq, ErisX – all of them will eventually clear trades from a place like Goldman Sachs on a daily basis. These firms are just providing access and ‘regulatory insurance’ via custody and some warehousing services. Goldman choosing to work with Bakkt is a nice headline today but may be irrelevant by late 2019.”

Indeed, as quickly as the financial press gives, of course, it can take away. Business PR folks are masters at manipulating journalists in search of clicks and headline fires. Floating rumors gives the company a chance to gauge initial reception to a less than conventional idea, and crypto for sure qualifies.

Newly formed crypto news site, The Block, contrasts Goldman’s supposed entry into the space with that of BlackRock, the multi-trillion dollar asset management company. CEO Larry Fink has long maintained there to be very little relative interest in crypto. This Summer, he stated flatly, “I don’t believe any client has sought out crypto exposure. I’ve not heard from one client who says, ‘I need to be in this.’” Mind the head fakes, Dear Reader. Watch, don’t listen. Watch.

C. Edward Kelso is a financial technology journalist based in Southern California. Follow him on Twitter.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

Crypto exchange and wallet service Coinbase has raised $300 million through its Series E funding round, designed to provide more capital to power its mission to “accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrencies.”

As part of the funding drive, which saw the firm valued at $8 billion, Coinbase is eyeing goals including global expansion, bridging institutional investors into crypto through services like its custody offering, and a push towards more utility applications for crypto.

The funding round was led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Wellington Management, Polychain and Y Combination Continuity.

The funding comes at an important time for Coinbase, with the company actively pursuing crypto licenses and chasing institutional interest in several jurisdictions.

Welcoming the new funding in a blog post published Tuesday, president and COO Asiff Hirji said the funding will help Coinbase, and the wider crypto sector, grow in influence worldwide.

“Coinbase is, and will remain, a crypto-first company. More than anything, we’re proud of the millions of people that have turned to Coinbase as their entry-point into crypto. We take that responsibility very seriously,” he wrote, adding, “We strive to be the easy, trusted way for anyone to get started with cryptocurrencies. We see Coinbase’s growth as validation that the ecosystem will only continue to grow in size, influence and impact—ultimately ushering in a more open financial system for the world.”

The latest round of funding takes the total raised by Coinbase to $500 million, following its series D round back in August. At the time, the $100 million raised valued the company at around $1.6 billion, in a round led by Netflix and Dropbox investor Institutional Venture Partners.

With its cryptocurrency custody services, Coinbase has been building the infrastructure to appeal more directly to institutional investors. At the same time, regulatory approval in states like New York, for example, are creating a more compelling offer for regulated investors.

The funding will also be deployed in increasing the number of cryptocurrencies and tokens listed with the exchange, with Hriji saying they see “hundreds of cryptocurrencies that could be added to our platform today,” with plans “to support thousands in the future.”

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

For my next trick, I’m going to attempt to move the crypto from the exchange into my Bitcoin.com wallet, so that I’m ready to spend it.

I’m starting where I left off last time, in the Coinbase account on my laptop. Clicking on Accounts at the top of the page takes me to a screen with a list of currencies. The only one with any money in is BCH – the £20 I transferred to it last time.

I’m trying to move the money into my Bitcoin.com wallet, from where I’ll be able to spend it. I click on Send and get to this:

I need fill in the Recipient box with an address that will tell Coinbase where I want the money sent to, so I go to my phone and open my Bitcoin.com account – which will be the recipient:

I click Receive and am shown a QR code. Tapping it copies the long code underneath the QR image to my clipboard. This is my Public Key – the crypto equivalent of an email address, a way of telling people where they can send me money.

I paste it into an email, send it to myself and open it on my laptop (just because it’s such a long code, this is a quick way to access it on my laptop (or I could have photographed the QR image with my laptop camera).

Now back on Coinbase (on the screen two up from here), I paste the long code into the Enter a BCH address box, choose to send $10 and press Continue at the bottom. Coinbase sends a verification code to my phone and I enter that on my laptop and Confirm.

It works! Bitcoin.com shows that I have money in my wallet:

All that remains is to work out how to spend it. That’s for next time.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

Coinbase has been awarded a license to operate as an independent qualified custodian for cryptocurrencies under New York State Banking Law.

On Tuesday, the cryptocurrency exchange announced that the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has authorized its subsidiary, the Coinbase Custody Trust Company LLC, to offer custody services for Bitcoin Cash, along with other cryptos like ETH, BTC, ETC, XRP, and LTC.

Coinbase Custody, launched in July, will operate as an independent business to Coinbase Inc., offering institutional-grade services “for storing large amounts of cryptocurrency in a highly secure way.” Coinbase Custody products are said to utilize a range of security measures, which include on-chain segregation of cryptocurrency assets, robust cold storage auditing and reporting, offline multi-sig, and geographically distributed transaction protection.

Coinbase holds the Money Transmitter and Virtual Currency licenses from the NYDFS since January 2017. According to the crypto company, the new license will allow the company to store more crypto asset while adding new features on its platform.

Like other businesses, Coinbase Custody will be held to the same regulatory compliance and financial requirements and will have to adhere to strict banking standards like anti-money laundering procedures, confidentiality, safety, and storage.

In a statement, Coinbase President and COO Asiff Hirji said the New York State Limited Purpose Trust charter, which enables Coinbase Custody to act as a qualified custodian for crypto assets, builds on the company’s “success as a crypto custodian while holding the company to the same exacting fiduciary standards and oversight of other, mature financial institutions operating in New York.”

Coinbase Custody is an institutional-grade service optimized for storing large amounts of cryptocurrency in a highly secure way. Coinbase Custody also uses systems from SEC-registered broker-dealer and FINRA-member Electronic Transaction Clearing (ETC). In August, Coinbase announced plans to add 40 new assets to its custodian service. The crypto assets in question, however, may be added “for storage only,” as Coinbase is not currently considering the assets for trading.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

The story so far: I’ve downloaded a cryptocurrency wallet onto my phone, from Bitcoin.com, as I explained here. Now I want to turn some real money into crypto.

A friend has recommended Coinbase as an app that I could use to exchange real money (sorry, fiat money, as it’s called in the crypto world) into Bitcoin Cash (BCH)—which is the cryptocurrency that CoinGeek recommends.

I download Coinbase. It looks like this, and at the bottom of the screen, invites me to Sign Up.

Coinbase is a crypto exchange. So what’s the difference between an exchange and a wallet? Well, an exchange is like a bank, where you can buy and sell different currencies, whether crypto or fiat. You can keep money in an exchange, but a wallet is the easiest place from which to use crypto, whether for buying, transferring to someone else, or receiving someone else’s payment to you.

It’s like the difference between a bank and your physical wallet: you can keep money in both but for day to day spending, you use your wallet, not the bank.

Signing up to Coinbase is quite a faff. So much so that I transfer from my phone to the Coinbase website and do it on my laptop. As well as the usual passwords and personal details, you have to upload a couple of documents—passport, utility bill or credit card—and then they take a while to process them.

But a few minutes later Coinbase tells me we are in business:

To convert some money to BCH, just as with any other kind of currency exchange, I have to transfer of funds to Coinbase. Here are the choices of where my money can be sent from:

Although Coinbase recommends that I link up my bank account, I’m still taking baby steps, and so I choose to pay with a credit card. Not all cards will allow you to transfer into a crypto exchange, but I have one that does and so I enter its details, just like for any online purchase. Now I’m ready to buy some BCH. I start by entering $10:

But then I spot that the Coinbase fee is about 10 per cent, so I go crazy and double my investment to $20, where the fee comes down to a still substantial 7.5 per cent. Here’s the deal:

Somehow my dollar investment has been turned into pounds, but never mind: I press Buy now.

But there’s a problem: the price of BCH is so volatile that the exchange rate has changed even while I’m taking the above screenshot—and the deal is off:

I try again, more quickly this time. The deal is marginally better for me than the one Coinbase rejected. I take a look at the changing price of BCH. It’s fallen against the dollar in the past few minutes, which is why I’ve been able to get a very slightly better rate:

So now Coinbase is telling me that I’m the proud owner of some BCH. It cost me $26.30 and a couple of hours later, it’s worth $23.90 (but that includes the $1.50 fee to Coinbase). I can track its changing value on the site:

But, hey, I’m not here to speculate on currency price movements. I’m here to get money into my wallet. I need a strong cup of tea, so that’s for next time.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced the opening of a Dublin site, its second office in Europe.

In a blog post, Coinbase Vice-President for Operations and Technology Tina Bhatnagar said, “Our new office will help us tap into the city’s diverse talent pool and long-standing support for technological innovation, including a burgeoning cryptocurrency economy.”

She said that the team in Dublin “will complement Coinbase operations in London and host a variety of new business-related functions, including roles for which we’re hiring right now.”

Coinbase UK CEO Zeeshan Feroz told CNBC that uncertainty in the implementation of policies after Great Britain’s 2016 vote to separate from the European Union (EU), “played some part in the decision.” He also pointed out that “[t]he EU is our most significant market outside the U.S.”

Martin Shanahan, CEO of IDA Ireland, the country’s inward investment promotion agency, said, “Dublin is a talent hotspot for companies like Coinbase as they scale and internationalize critical business operations.”

Last month, the UK Parliament’s Treasury committee released a report that recommended for additional oversight of the cryptocurrency trade, to be handled by the Financial Conduct Authority. The report denied that cryptocurrencies served as media of exchange, due to their volatility in price.

Coinbase has also recently opened an office in New York, to focus mainly on institutional clients. The New York office currently has a work force of 20, but is set to increase by 150 next year, to handle the expansion.

Even at present, regular users are reportedly experiencing delays with withdrawal of funds. Some 200 pages of complaints against Coinbase had reportedly been filed at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last summer. Responding to such concerns, the company said it was addressing the problems by hiring more personnel and working to reduce response times, among other actions.

As part of Coinbase’s efforts at developing its global market, it has modified its cryptocurrency listing procedure, allowing users to directly suggest or apply for tokens to be listed.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

It would appear that Coinbase, the San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider, is slow to respond to customer requests. Specifically, requests to withdrawal funds. According to a report in CryptoGlobe, sources have told the media outlet that US-based customers are having a difficult time making withdrawals, with some reporting delays of up to a month.

According to the article, only the US customers are affected. The issues apparently impact all of the platform’s assets and have been reported for as long as two weeks. The delays are reportedly not seen on Coinbase’s institutional platform, Coinbase Pro.

The topic has found its way to social media. One user, Ricard Antonio Ramos, stated on Facebook, “6 day hold now last I checked [at least] for me.” He was responding to a post by Chris Enlow, who had said “…It takes a few days for your deposit to clear but then you can buy and sell instantly at least. I think the last time I bought crypto from [Coinbase] they held the damn coins for 7 days…”

Coinbase is no stranger to complaints. Since last year, there have been reports that the platform holds funds before pushing them out to depositors’ accounts. This past summer, a number of media outlets reported on the issues, uncovering 200 pages of complaints that had been filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The platform said at the time that it was working to facilitate customer issues and would be hiring more staff to help manage a surge in activity on the exchange. However, the latest complaints follow a decrease of 83% in the trading volume seen on the exchange this past August. This will make it difficult for Coinbase to explain the delays as being a result of too much activity.

Coinbase has also had to deal with lawsuits of insider trading and accusations of making repeated illegal charges against the bank accounts of its users. The insider trading issues have been found to be unsubstantiated and the unauthorized charges were, according to Coinbase, a result of problems at Visa, not at Coinbase.

The company is reportedly now worth $8 billion after being backed by hedge fund Tiger Global last month. Tiger Global reportedly invested $500 million, half of which will go toward investments with the other half used to buy out investors.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.